(PS13-B34) Exploring Graduate Student Mental Health and Service Utilization by Gender, Race, and Year in School

Existing work has found that nearly half of graduate students report having greater emotional or stress-related problems while they are in graduate school (Hyun et al., 2006). Indeed, some work has found that rates of anxiety and depression are at a two to six times higher rate in graduate students than the general population (Evans et al., 2018). Despite these elevated rates, much of the work on young adult mental health has focused on undergraduate students versus graduate students. Moreover, there has been far less attention devoted to exploring whether there are differences in graduate student mental health issues across different demographic groups, and whether graduate students are likely to utilize supports and services for their mental health needs. The current study first explores the scope of mental health problems for graduate students overall and by various demographic groups. Specifically, differences in mental health problems by gender (men vs. women), race/ethnicity (White vs. non-White), and year in school (first year vs. second year and beyond) were explored. Second, the current study aimed to understand the degree to which graduate students utilized services to support their mental health and the barriers they faced to seeking support. Finally, effects of the pandemic were also examined in relation to participants’ physical health, mental health, and access to basic needs. Nearly 3,000 graduate students from a large liberal arts university were asked to complete a survey on their mental health and well-being in fall 2021. Of those students, 734 participants responded to the survey and were included in the current study for analysis. Results indicated that women (vs. men) and participants in their second year and beyond (vs. their first year) reported greater mental health problems, negative impact of the pandemic, and more service utilization. White (vs. non-White) participants reported greater negative impact of the pandemic, greater service utilization, and less financial strain. Although most participants reported that the pandemic negatively influenced their physical health and access to basic needs to at least a little degree, most participants reported the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health to a moderate to large degree, suggesting that mental health may have been most impacted by the pandemic for graduate students. Participants generally reported a variety of barriers to their ability to seek treatment, but some common barriers included lack of finances, lack of knowledge about resources, and poor communication from the university about services specific to graduate students. We conclude with suggestions for what specific action universities can take to better support their graduate students, including but not limited to improving their communication and tailoring their services to graduate students.